Carl Jung Vs Sigmund Freud: a Comparison of Psychodynamic Theories of Personalities

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung both author two separate Psychodynamic Theories of Personality. While former colleagues and even close friends at one time, differences related to their studies led to a falling out. After Jung and Freud’s split, Jung spoke about being in a suffocating atmosphere when it came to working with Freud (Williams, 1963). Freud and Jung were so close at one point that Freud considered Jung a son, and Jung as well regarded Freud a father-figure (Carta, 2012). Although Jung agreed with Freud’s ideas concerning the human psyche, their dispute of the involvement of religion, morality, and spirituality involved with the unconscious is one of the major differences the two had which ultimately ended their close partnership (Abu-Raiya, 2011).

Freud based his theory, which Jung referred to as instinct-based (Dolliver, 1994) off of the unconscious and conscious components of the mind. He explained the unconscious as awareness within the mind through feelings and sensations rather external awareness. Freud believed that the three stages that consisted of a person’s personality were the id, the ego, and the super-ego (Abu-Raiya, 2011). Id, ego, and super-ego all stand at different degrees of consciousness (Segrist, 2009).

Id is the first stage, which starts at infancy. Id is pleasure driven and is unconscious completely and acts on impulses such as sexual drive and aggression. Paying no attention to reasoning, id is purely devoted to allowing as much satisfaction as possible while simultaneously decreasing anything that causes dissatisfaction to any extent (Abu-Raiya, 2011).

The recognition of reality is where the ego becomes present. The ego is developed once one realizes that a sort of compromise must be made in order for pleasure to be ensured. The ego is mostly conscious and is driven by logical thinking rather than the illogical thinking of id.

While id will act on impulse to get something that will provide satisfaction, the ego will stop the id from acting irrational in order to obtain that pleasure (Abu-Raiya, 2011).

The super-ego is associated with the morality side of one’s personality. Freud considered the super ego to be related to the Oedipal Complex (Lesmeister, 1998). The Oedipal Complex develops in childhood and is when the child begins to direct its libido, or sexual energy, toward the parent of the opposite sex while simultaneously fearing the reprisal from the parent of the same sex (Abu-Raiya, 2011).

Although Jung agreed with Freud’s theory of the mind being divided into three separate parts and acknowledged the ideas of the conscious and unconscious mind, he did posses his own unique theories to this concept. Instead of the id, the ego, and the super-ego, Jung, with emphasis on the unconscious, theorized that the personality consisted of the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious (Williams, 1963). Jung believed there was more to the unconscious than Freud theorized. Jung introduced in his own theory the concept of the personal unconscious. The personal unconscious is unique to each individual. He also theorized about the collective unconscious, in which archetypes are universal throughout the individual unconscious (Abu-Raiya, 2011).

The personal unconscious is directly linked to the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is the first layer of the two unconscious. Repressed memories are located in the personal unconscious (Williams, 1963).

The collective unconscious is the second layer of the unconscious. Jung believed that everyone shares certain thoughts, ideas, and symbols no matter where on the Earth they live or in what times period they are born. These symbols he called archetypes. Archetypes are derived and from culture and society. Jung’s archetypes consist of the mask/persona, the shadow, the anima/animus, and the self (Moore, 2000).

The shadow is the part of a person’s personality that no one sees. The shadow can be related to Freud’s id. This is the dark side of an individual; the side that is kept hidden and concealed (Moore, 2000).

The anima is the feministic tendencies in men and the animus is the masculine tendencies in woman, which come from centuries of living together. There is a consistent presence of masculinity in women and of feminism in men, also known as the maternal and the paternal instincts in the opposite sex (Moore, 2000).

The mask, or persona of a person’s personality is the way one acts around others. The persona is the personality an individual will show to others, masking one’s true nature. The persona is influenced greatly by society (Moore, 2000).

The last archetype is self. Self is the sense of completeness in an individual’s existence. Self is what Jung believed to be the goal of every individual to achieve in life, and . Self is superior to the other archetypes because it is the center of the personality as a whole (Abu-Raiya, 2011).

Jung’s Psychodynamic Theory of Personality focuses mainly on the existence of the spiritual existence – whether a believer or not, there is the morality, or sense of something not being right, that one submits to – while Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory of Personality focuses mostly on the materialistic aspects and sexual desires of the unconscious mind, excluding anything religious. Out of the two different theories, Jung’s is the most controversial, however neither theory can be disproved (Abu-Rya, 2011).